Headlines

Black Friday’s big draw: Youth

Indeed, at 4 a.m., the Cherry Hill Mall had the air of a Saturday afternoon, with hundreds of youth filling it’s cavernous space.

They crowded in stores such as Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch where equally young male models posed shirtless in shorts.

Why? Maybe now Black Friday has become such a marathon that only the young have the stamina with retailers opening stores earlier than ever this year-on Thanksgiving night, instead of midnight or later on Black Friday.

Abercrombie & Fitch (incl. Hollister) target 14-18 demo. This same age group also happen to be too young to have credit cards. That’s why the lineup is usually about 1.5 mile and takes over the whole damn mall.

All the shopping in my area must have happened last night. I went out to the grocery store and there was almost no traffic anywhere in places where there’s ALWAYS traffic. Looks like everyone stayed home today.

Of course it appeals to the yoots bcuz it’s just a continuation of the camp-out-and-sleep-in-line generations we started raising in the 1980s to be the first to get or see everything from movies to techtoys. And it appeals to the young bcuz they don’t have the benefit of experience to know what they’re getting–or NOT getting–like the young woman who ended up buying a different TV bcuz the one on sale that lured her in sold out before she got there. Who remembers the insanities that prevailed in the mid 1970s with Cabbage Patch dolls? Or TickleMeElmo and Furbys in the mid/late 1990s?